


iii. text & terms.

by The Sneak (AloryShannon)



Series: Welcome to the Akatsuki Public Library, how may we help you to die--I mean, today? [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-24
Updated: 2008-09-24
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:12:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AloryShannon/pseuds/The%20Sneak





	iii. text & terms.

Someone has been rearranging the office supplies at the reference desk. The compartmentalised pen cup and notepad go on the right side of the computer monitor, beside the phone, and the magnetic-top paperclip container and the stapler go on the left, next to the printer. The rubber bands and extra boxes of staples belong in the desk’s top drawer, neatly separated from the ruler, thumbtacks, staple remover, white-out, erasers, multi-coloured post-it notes, and additional notepads. The next drawer down is the one containing library card applications and new library cards. The one below that has blank paper for the printer, as well as two spare ink cartridges, a three-hole puncher, and a box cutter (which is there solely for the sake of mental reassurance--Sasori often takes comfort in the fact that he _could_ have it out and jab it through someone’s eye before they could blink, and he often envisions doing just that when confronted with particularly abrasive patrons).

Kakuzu is generally conscientious about putting things back where they belong--he might leave the white-out beside the pen cup every now and then or neglect to replace a spare ink cartridge, but he knows better than to reorganize Sasori’s primary work area.

Which leaves one possible culprit.

Without turning his head, Sasori glares at Deidara out of the corners of his eyes. The blonde, however, is preoccupied with the paramount tasks of clearing an expert-level board of Minesweeper in record time and snapping his gum, and is seemingly oblivious to the animosity being directed his way.

A muscle twitches in one smooth, flawless cheek, but the Head Reference Librarian doesn’t say a word as he sets about putting everything back in its proper location, though he mollifies himself somewhat by allowing his mind to wander through a series of awe-inspiringly violent scenarios, all of which feature Deidara, himself, and the trusty box cutter.

* * *

  
Deidara simply _will not shut up._ He’s been going on and on about the details of some play he was in a few years back, the subtleties of which he has been explaining for precisely 27 minutes and 16 seconds now. (Sasori knows; he’s been timing him, staring dully at the clock on the wall over the blonde’s right shoulder.)

The fact that Deidara _still_ has that wretched gum in his mouth doesn’t help matters any. They aren’t supposed to chew gum, really--it’s unprofessional, very sloppy-looking. But once again Sasori doesn’t say anything, though he does take the first available opportunity to remove himself from his newest coworker’s presence by going to refill his mug with hot black coffee from the break room.

He returns to the desk five minutes later, feeling noticeably calmer. He’s halfway through his new cup of coffee, and is finally beginning to relax a bit (Deidara has vanished with some vague excuse about having bookdrop duty and a lot of shelving) when he goes to turn himself using the desk edge, and his thumb lands in something warm, moist, and appallingly sticky; a reluctant glance at the underside of the desk confirms his suspicions and reveals a wad of gum the size of a baby’s fist.

Thumb still embedded in slimy, neon-pink bubblegum, Sasori’s eyes slowly drift closed and his mouth tightens, a faint expression of longsuffering coming over his usually-blank features.

Kakuzu is currently on his lunch break, so there’s no one else to take over at the Reference desk for him right now, and it would be more trouble than it’s worth to get Pein involved. Deidara, he reflects, doing his best to remove the gum residue from his finger with a sanitary wipe (or four) from the little pack he keeps in his back pocket at all times, is an _obscenely_ lucky little scut. He is safe…for the moment, anyway.

* * *

  
Sasori is reading at his customary spot at the break room table during his lunch hour when Deidara comes in to eat. (Pein took special care to make certain that Deidara and Sasori always had their lunch breaks at the same time, and if that’s his method of pushing his Head Reference Librarian towards early retirement, Sasori believes he just might be successful.) The blonde seems aware that his coworker is on edge and that he himself is the cause, because he looks away when Sasori spits him with a flat glare on his entrance, and hurriedly focuses on digging into his locker for his lunch: a can of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti  & Meatballs. He clatters through the cupboards looking for a bowl; on finding one (in the last possible cabinet of course) he repeats the entire process in a search for silverware, making even _more_ noise this time around, which is a rather remarkable feat.

Sasori ignores him completely.

The former actor dumps his food into the bowl (without washing it out first, the redhead observes with a slight twitch) and shoves it in the microwave.

He fills the two-and-a-half minutes of waiting with more fidgeting than Sasori, who is watching surreptitiously from beneath his eyelashes, had previously thought possible: tapping his fingers on top of the microwave, shifting his weight back and forth, leaning against the counter and crossing and uncrossing his legs, shoving his hands into the pockets of his worn, baggy jeans only to remove them seconds later to fiddle with the spoon, briefly trying to balance it on the end of his nose before choosing to use it as a makeshift drumstick instead and drumming away on every available surface.

Mercifully the drumming is soon cut off by the cheerful and inharmonious _ding!_ from the microwave; the blonde collects his food and retrieves a beverage--some outlandish-sounding energy drink--from the fridge and plunks down across from Sasori, who placidly turns a page in his book and keeps reading.

Deidara proceeds to eat his meal in a manner more befitting a two-year-old child than a twenty-something librarian--dripping tomato sauce on the table with nearly every spoonful, loudly slurping up individual noodles and chuckling when the ends flick up and hit him in the nose, and ultimately getting just about as much food on his face or on the table as actually makes it into his mouth.

  
Sasori bears up under this newfound persecution admirably...until Deidara proceeds to quite literally lick his bowl clean.

 

And at that, the last strand of the Head Reference Librarian’s tenuous patience finally snaps:

 

With a muffled snarl, Sasori _hurls_ himself across the table at the startled blonde.

* * *

  
It takes the better part of ten minutes, as well as the combined efforts of Kisame, Pein, and Kakuzu, to pry the two apart.

Deidara, who is holding a damp cloth to a cut on his forehead (Sasori had caught him just wrong--or just right, depending on who you asked--with the corner of the book he’d been reading), seems honestly bewildered (“…But what did I _do,_ hmm? Danna won’t tell me!”); Sasori just glowers murderously at anyone and everyone he happens to make eye contact with, and repeatedly attempts to straighten his hopelessly rumpled shirt.

Pein seems rather amused by the whole affair, but he also gives Sasori a knowing look. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off,” he suggests pleasantly, though the redhead knows from past experience that it’s more of an order really. “As for you—” Pein’s gaze shifts itself to Deidara, every hint of pleasantness instantly dissipating, replaced by a firm, no-nonsense tone “—get back to work.”

“Ah! But I still have another half hour of my lunch break—”

“I _said._ Get back to work. _Now.”_

There is a hard, clipped quality to Pein’s words, and indignant as the blonde may be, he knows better than to continue his protestations.

He hangs his head a bit, apparently fittingly chastened…but as he turns to go, he happens to catch Sasori’s eye. The expression that flickers across the former actor’s face is so sudden and subtle that Sasori can’t be entirely sure that it wasn’t just his imagination, but he could have sworn that Deidara _winked_ at him, the corners of his lips curling with the barest trace of a smirk, before he turned and vanished out the door.

* * *

 

[Deidara is OBVIOUSLY the King of Minesweeper.]


End file.
